D’AVALOS: QUINTETTI

Francesco d’Avalos (Naples, 1930-2014), a musician-prince from one of the oldest aristocratic families of Spanish-Neapolitan origin, was a composer, conductor, teacher, essayist and philosopher. His interest in music as an art expression began when he was quite young, thanks to the musical collections of his father Carlo and to the long listening sessions shared by him with his guests. D’Avalos’s first compositions were patterned on Bruckner’s Symphonies, which were his constant model, together with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. In actual fact, the entire twentieth century was regarded by him as a real climax in the history of Western civilisation. The Quartetto Noûs, together with Francesco Caramiello at the piano (also on the Giovanni Sgambati, Opera Omnia for piano, Tactus TC841901/08) and the soprano Leslie Visco, interpreting the composer”s quintets. A very interesting and unknown personality (he was Sergiu Celibidache student in composition), in his artistic experience he embraced and then abandoned the musical avant-garde, in search of a personal writing style that not only does not fear the passage of time, yet, is using it to obtain a deeper space full of images and symbols.